Uncle Simeon in Chattanooga

Before anyone in the family gets to excited, I didn’t find a long lost uncle in Tennessee. Well I did, but, let me explain…………..

Uncle Simeon, or maybe Simon, called just Si ( I think? And pronounced Cy) is my great uncle. He is buried in the National Cemetery in Chattanooga. We had the good fortune to visit there and see his burial site.

Uncle Si (he is referred to that way by his brother, Peter Robert, in a letter home) was killed in the Civil War battle for Chattanooga at Missionary Ridge. That was November 25th, 1863. His father Absalom, my 2nd Great Grandfather, and five of his brothers, including my Great Grandfather, Leonard, all joined the Union Army. Absalom was 60 years old at the time and had to die his hair and beard to get in. Absalom, Si, and Peter Robert were all in Company B, 15th Regiment, Ohio Infantry, in the Union Army of the Cumberland. Absalom had been killed the year before at the Battle of Stones River in Murfreesboro TN. Peter Robert served until the war ended. I mentioned in a previous entry that he may have been here at Cooper Furnace where we are working. I have visited Absalom’s burial site at the National Cemetery at Stones River Battlefield. Two other uncles were killed during the war. William was killed at Cumberland Gap TN, and Isaac in Vicksburg MS. We have yet to visit Vicksburg and the location of the gravesite of William has been lost?

Kat and I went to Chattanooga to see the battlefield and to visit the cemetery. We started at Lookout Mt., and then went to the cemetery and Chickamauga National Battlefield in Georgia. It’s right across the state line and where the battle for Chattanooga began. Si and Peter would have been there. As with all the Civil War sites I have visited, Lookout Mt. and Chickamauga are very well done. The National Park Service still gets this done right. They have some real dedicated folks doing this kind of thing. The same can be said for National Cemeteries. Simeon’s marker had obviously been replaced as had others. The whole visit was great. Pictures really don’t do it justice. For a little perspective on the Civil War the need for this cemetery was started by the Battle for Chattanooga in late 1863. It was dedicated Christmas Day 1863, and by 1865 12,000 Union soldiers had been buried there. 5000 of those are unknown. Confederate soldiers are buried at another location. As I have said before, When I walk these grounds “I feel like I am in very good company”.

The Yellow Bellied Slider

Just yesterday we were driving through the park and encountered an older couple watching a turtle. It turns out the turtle was a Yellow Bellied Slider female laying eggs. She was a pretty good size turtle as you can see from the pictures. We did some research and found she was bigger even than she was supposed to be. Wikapedia says she should be 8-10” long, Kat’s ‘Croc’ is 10”, which is not a size 10 because that would be a big foot for Kat who is more like a size 6 just so we keep that straight. Anyway, you can see she was a couple of inches longer than that. I had to run back to the RV to get the camera and missed getting shots of the eggs and laying but it was neat. She laid 20 some white, ¾” eggs and they will take 2-3 months to hatch and then the young may stay in the hole until spring, before they go to the water. Don’t know how that works but that’s what Wikapedia says. She dug the hole and covered it with her hind feet and returned to the water. Just like National Geo. We watched to make sure she made it OK. She got hung up in some down branches and I thought I might have to do some rescue work. I even went to get my extendable pole to help push her, but she got unstuck by herself. And today her nest is undisturbed. We read that raccoons are a natural predator of turtles and their eggs and we have plenty of raccoons, but no problem. So these eggs have a good start.

The Vine that Ate the South

From the University of Alabama Center for Public Television and Radio

The Amazing Story of Kudzu Love It, Or Hate It... It Grows On You!

In Georgia, the legend says That you must close your windows At night to keep it out of the house.The glass is tinged with green, even so...

From the poem, "Kudzu," by James Dickey

There's so much of this fast-growing vine in the Southeastern U.S., you might think it was a native plant. Actually, it took a lot of hard work to help kudzu spread so widely. Now that it covers over seven million acres of the deep South, there are a lot of people working hard to get rid of it! But kudzu is used in ways which might surprise you...

Common names for kudzu include: mile-a-minute vine, foot-a-night vine, and the vine that ate the South.

Kudzu's History:Up and Down the Power Pole

Kudzu was introduced to the United States in 1876 at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Countries were invited to build exhibits to celebrate the 100th birthday of the U.S. The Japanese government constructed a beautiful garden filled with plants from their country. The large leaves and sweet-smelling blooms of kudzu captured the imagination of American gardeners who used the plant for ornamental purposes.

Florida nursery operators, Charles and Lillie Pleas, discovered that animals would eat the plant and promoted its use for forage in the 1920s. Their Glen Arden Nursery in Chipley sold kudzu plants through the mail. A historical marker there proudly proclaims "Kudzu Developed Here."
During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Soil Conservation Service promoted kudzu for erosion control. Hundreds of young men were given work planting kudzu through the Civilian Conservation Corps. Farmers were paid as much as eight dollars an acre as incentive to plant fields of the vines in the 1940s.

The problem is that it just grows too well! The climate of the Southeastern U.S. is perfect for kudzu. The vines grow as much as a foot per day during summer months, climbing trees, power poles, and anything else they contact. Under ideal conditions kudzu vines can grow sixty feet each year. Kudzu grows better in the South than it does in its native lands. Its natural insect enemies were not brought to the U.S. with it. So, while Kudzu can help prevent erosion, the vines can also destroy valuable forests by preventing trees from getting sunlight, and considerable damage is being done across the south.

That's why visitors to the South are sometimes awe-struck by scenic vistas which reveal miles and miles of seemingly endless vines.